North Carolina Now; Neverending; Interview with Thad Beyle

The It's Wednesday May 8 tonight. Statewide election results in North Carolina now. Good evening everyone I'm Shannon victory Merida Metroid have the night off. We have an exciting show for you tonight packed full of the latest political news from around the state. We'll have a complete recap of all of last night's primary results

and we'll help you make sense of all those numbers with analysis from you and see Chapel Hill political science professor tad bille. We're also hear from some of the state's best known political experts about their reactions to last night's winners and losers. But first let's take a look at the aftermath of the primaries. There was no rest for the victorious or the weary for that matter today on the campaign trail. Former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gant has won the opportunity to challenge incumbent Jesse Helms for his long held U.S. Senate seat. The race between Gant and Charlie Sanders was called early on last night with all the precincts reporting get garnered 52 percent of the Democratic vote to 42 percent first Sanders. It had become a rather contentious campaign between the two. But today at Democratic headquarters in Raleigh they set aside their differences. Joining forces to oust Helms one of the things that I love about the party is that when we have our little fights we can get together at

the end of the day about moving forward to deal with the review. Hold it in there that is just so you know. Well I have about for in fact started reasonably well although I don't know you. The checks were from Sanders his wife and his campaign manager Sanders also offered the remainder of his campaign resources to Gant to further his efforts to be Senator Helms. The 1990 Senate race between Gant and Helms has become one of the most infamous in political campaign history for its highly negative nature. But Upon receiving news of Dan's victory Senator Helms issued a statement saying he expects the campaign between himself and get to be spirited but that he does hope it will remain positive and in the Republican gubernatorial race. State Representative Robin Hayes won a narrow victory over former Charlotte mayor Richard Vinroot despite the fact that the GOP establishment indorsed Vinroot with all

the precincts reporting Hayes took 50 percent of the vote while Vinroot ended up with forty six percent of the vote. Manning and Ken Rogers had 2 percent each. This is not exact. In his concession speech last night in Charlotte Vinroot valid Tabak Hayes for the sake of the Republican Party. Meanwhile the Hayes campaign wasted no time getting back on the stump for Gov.. Hayes flew to points throughout North Carolina today including Republican headquarters in Raleigh. There he said he would run the same kind of campaign as he did in the primary. We hammered issues on television and we're going to hammer issues and record. This is what we stand for. If you don't like us today you won't like us tomorrow because this is who we are and the same is in the elected official as I was the businessman who has been a father the same and I will be as governor before winter was even announced Governor Hunt's office called for a more positive tone for the race in

November citing negative attacks by both Hayes and Vinroot in the primary. His campaign manager said North Carolina voters deserve better and challenge the GOP nominee to stay away from such attacks. There were literally hundreds of other statewide and local races on the ballot yesterday and as Christina Copeland reports a few of them did not have a clear cut winner Richard Petty will have to wait a little while longer before finding out who his Democratic opponent for secretary of state will be. Elaine Marshall the former state lawmaker was the top vote getter yesterday but she failed to get the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Now it's up to second place finisher Valarie allegedly to decide if she wants a rematch on June 4th. There are also possible run offs in two congressional districts. Both Republicans and Democrats in the 7th Congressional District could head back to the polls in June on the GOP side Robert Anderson would face off against Bill Castor

in the Democratic race the original field of seven candidates has been narrowed to the two top vote getters. Rosemarie Lowery Townsend and Mike MacIntyre in the 8th Congressional District a runoff is possible between Curtis Blackwood and Cheryl Morgan. To decide who will face incumbent Bill Hefner in November. They were clear cut winners in the other contested congressional races in the third district GOP contest. George parrot came out on top with 42 percent of the vote. He'll face incumbent Walter Jones in the fall in the Ninth District Mike Daisley will be the Democratic challenger to incumbent Sue Myrick. And in the 11th District Democrat James Ferguson won a chance to take on incumbent Charles Taylor. Steve Arnold the Guilford County Republican who gave up a run for governor earlier in the year to enter the race for lieutenant governor came out on top in that contest. He'll face incumbent lieutenant governor Dennis worker come November. Another race that will be closely followed in the fall will be the one for Superintendent of Public Instruction

Republican Vernon Robinson won his party's nomination for the second time. He'll face top Democratic vote getter Mike Ward a school administrator from Greenville County. There were two upsets in the general assembly. Democrats ousted in Wake County Senator Jay Kay Sharon the co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee and Republican Representative Ken Miller came in fifth in a six candidate race in Alamance County. Miller will be censured next week by the legislature for sexual harassment. Now joining us to sort out the primary results is Tad bille a professor of political science at U NC Chapel Hill. And thank you very much for joining us our pleasure. Let's get into it. We had a very exciting primary race last night for Governor very tight between Richard Vinroot and Robin Hayes. What finally put Robin Hayes over the edge with the advantage. Well I think he's a good candidate I think he also put together a good organization and had an idea as to what he want to do. Very

active. He has a little bit of charisma maybe a lot of charisma. The news media seem to like to interact with him. So I think he just sort of exuded and put you know a very very good and solid campaign and with the sort of help he had the advice he was getting it just worked on the other side I think. Richard Vinroot campaign was not as strong wasn't as exciting and he was guess what you might say a little bland or so that there was not that sort of excitement. Probably if we take a good hard look at it maybe the organization wasn't as good and cooking as well as it should have. When we look at Robin Hayes his numbers from the beginning of this race he was in the single digit number starting out a few months ago. And here he wins on primary night. Obviously he has picked up quite a bit of support from around the state over the past couple of months. How did he go about doing that. Well I think it's that organization and being able to connect with people having a good county by

county organization making sure the people who should get out and vote do get out of vote and identifying who they are. You know it's the key is to have the high number election day not three months or four months be before the election day. And so if you have that sort of goal in mind and don't coast on where you are I think you can really get a good drive and I think that's what he did you saw those numbers coming up. I think the first number I saw was back in December and then gradually each each poll was a little a little higher. So he had the movement in terms of how people were viewing it. And if you believe the polls then look like he was coming on and people were resonating with him. Turning now to the Senate race the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate between Harvey Gantt and Charlie Sanders. Any surprises there that Harvey Gantt pulled this one off.

Well I think you know picking up from where I just was Charlie Sanders was in the same position that Robin Hayes was. And also on the polls began to show him coming on stronger and stronger and in fact some of the polls showed Harvey Gantz numbers begin to weaken from 50 to 46 and so forth. But the reverse happened in terms of what happened yesterday. The people turned out and voted for Gant and Gant won rather handily from the beginning of when the votes were being reported. He had a lead and it just grew and grew and grew. And so that shows you two different things about it here's here's one person who had a lead and was able to hold it and build on it. In another case a person didn't have a lead and caught up and won. Can you tell from the numbers yet who supported yesterday. Well I'll tell you one thing is that he came out of Charlotte with a tremendous vote. And you contrast it with what came out of Charlotte I just think might have some like you know like 6 to 1 coming out of Charlotte Mecklenburg County where it's been rude

at like one and a half or two to one. And that gave him a tremendous leg up and then you take a look across the state at Durham County and wake in Wake County the big cities in the big counties. It was pretty close to having his total winning margin maybe five to ten thousand off. You just go through those top 10 counties and then you begin to pick up the others and you can really see that it was a state wide win but it had a lot of drive coming from those big cities. Were you surprised by any of the results last night in some of the other races. Surprised. Sure most of them kind of went the way you would expect. There were some that we just didn't have a clue as to what was going to happen. The Democratic secretary of state's race there six people running low name recognition. We know the Republican candidates going to be high recognition. And so we just were kind of surprised as to you know who was you surprised when you get the ballot who are these people. And yet it turned out two people on that ballot where were vying all night so

we'll have a runoff and. No not a landmark. Elaine Marshall and that's going to be an interesting fight between. Between them they're both well known and very good candidates and so the Democrats don't have to sort out between these two people they may not know quite as well as they they should. That was one that surprised because you just didn't the whole was going to happen. There are some others where some incumbents lost in the state legislature kind of a surprise in Raleigh Wake County Jake a share and lost and in the 16th Senate District Fred Hobson at last very narrowly I think about 300 votes but so you have these little individual surprises here and there. Any lessons that the candidates can Marne from this primary going into the November elections. Well I think the November elections are going to be so very different that the lessons they really need to learn from other from other general elections I think what we can learn about this

primary though is that. True believers come out and vote. The true believers are several kinds one like myself is I was raised to vote so therefore I'm a true believer in voting so I came out as did my wife we were out there voting other true believers are people who are true democrats and to Republicans. And then there's the true believers who have a mission and they are backing somebody. And these people come out people don't come out to vote. Don't have any of those drives and so in a low turnout primary like we had yesterday and I don't know what the exact percentage are but I think they're in the in the teens they're in. Anybody who comes out has a much greater shot at making an impact because if you've got 15 percent of the people out that means all you need is 8 percent of those who turn out of the total electorate to win. Interesting results. Yes very much so. We certainly appreciate you coming in tonight and I know that we will be speaking with you more over the next few

months. I hope so. Still to come we'll talk with a group of political experts from around the state to find out their reactions to last night's winners and losers. But first Michel Louis joins us from the now news that with the rest of today's statewide headlines. Good evening Mitt. Thanks Shannon. Good evening everyone. The state attorney general's office has come out with its 1995 initial Uniform Crime Report. Overall crime in our state was up by two percent over 1994 figures. The increase was mellowed by what Attorney General Mike Easley termed a dramatic drop in the number of murders among the adult population. The report also shows a 1 percent decrease in the number of juveniles arrested for violent crimes. Perhaps most troubling among the state's youthful offenses was an 8 percent increase in juvenile arrests for murders for those under 18. Children killing children robbery arrests for the same group was up 14 percent for the first time this year's initial crime report contained figures on hate crimes. In 1995 65 hate crimes were

reported. And of that number 44 involved race regulations impacting the state's livestock farmers past a critical juncture today. The state's blue ribbon commission on agricultural waste has adopted a proposal that will impose fees on small medium and large farms. The payment plan is expected to raise an estimated three hundred sixty thousand dollars to help with the inspection of animal waste lagoons. The State Court of Appeals has ruled biological parents who relinquish custody of their children have no automatic right to regain custody. The decision stems from the appeal of a lower court case in that case a Davidson County judge ordered the return of three girls to their biological parents who turned their children over to another couple to care for in 1989. The appeals court decision now sends the case back to a judge to determine whether it would be in the best interests of the children to return to their biological parents. Democratic U.S. Representative Mel Watt was the lone opponent to a bill

requiring public notice when a convicted sex offender is released from prison and settles on a neighborhood watch as the underlying assumption of the bill is that once someone has committed a crime of this kind he or she is presumed guilty for the rest of their lives. The House passed a measure which would toughen a 1994 law that allows states to provide notice by requiring notification when an offender considered dangerous to the public is released. More than a few North Carolinians find the Virginia Lottery an attractive gambling option. Now there's news that Virginia is set to join the huge 21 state Powerball lottery consortium to form a new multi state game. The official state announcement is expected in June and Virginia could be a participant state as early as January 1st. Revenue from the new game is estimated at 40 million dollars for half of 1997 and all of 98 combined. And now for a look at tomorrow's weather. Temperatures creep up into the high 80s across the middle of the state and approached the 90 degree mark at the coast. The

mountains will be a few degrees cooler as they top out between 75 and 80. Skies will be partly cloudy over the entire state bringing sunshine to add to the higher temperatures. In business news the city of Charlotte appears to be growing in popularity with tourists. Charlotte officials point to an increase in tourism dollars as evidence. City officials say visitors to the Queen City spend 1.9 billion dollars there in 1995 up from 1.6 million dollars in 1993. The Freightliner corporation has announced plans to bring the nation's oldest fire truck manufacturer to North Carolina. American Lafrance will settle in Cleveland North Carolina joining a Freightliner semi truck plant already located in the city. The fire truck plant will create 150 new jobs. Officials with American law say a fire truck museum will also be built on site next to its plant. And now for a look at what happened on Wall Street today. After months of campaigning we finally know who will face whom in November.

But what can we expect from these races over the next few months. Robin mini It has some answers from a panel of our state's political experts. Thank you all for joining us John Hood I'd like to begin with you. Do you think Harvey Gantt stands a chance of unseating Senate or House. Yes I do but I do think that Gantt as a as a return engagement has some some very serious challenges. A lot of his background has already been used against him in the previous race that Helms ran in 1900. Some of it fairly effectively and I think that it would be difficult for him to to to defeat some of those rather successful arguments that were made in the past time. However I do think that again this is a very difficult type of race to call because North Carolina has changed a lot in six years. Both the Democratic voters and the Republican voters there's been a an influx of new voters in North Carolina. Many of them are Republicans but it's not exactly clear on what issues they are going to vote on. And so it's very difficult to make

predictions about them. They are a true swing vote even as Republicans from for example northern states and you don't really know where they're going to go. But yes I think that it's possible for Gant to be Helms. But I think that Helms will have some obvious advantages in incumbency fund raising political talent. And experience with this candidate Gantt will have to come up with some new some new strategies I think in order to defeat the incoming Christmas song. What about you do you think that Helms this year is vulnerable. Sure I think I think that was a very close race it was that 52 percent to 48 percent six years ago. Just like Helms has learned a lot about Harvey Gantt I think Harvey Gantt learned a lot about Jesse Helms I think there's one overriding difference to this year that wasn't there in 1900 that is Helms was part of a congressional majority now and he's been more comfortable on the outside criticizing especially what Congress does and holding the Democratic candidate responsible for what happens in Washington tying him to what happens in

Washington in this case. I think Mr. Gamble try to tie Senator Helms in all gentlemanly because he's part of the majority of Congress. He's done some things that I don't believe the American people are happy with. And there are a lot of issues I think that Mr. Gant has now at his disposal based on the last two years in the last two years a vote that Senator Helms has cast which I think will make this a much different race. Senator McCoy Harvey Gantt has said that race is and has been raised as an issue during this campaign and it was also an issue in 1990. Do you think it's an issue and do you think it's a fair issue. No I don't think it's a fair issue. I think that in in political campaigns race has been used as an issue. My hope would be that that both candidates would put their issues in front of the voters. How do they stand on education how do they stand on the environment how they stand on foreign policy and give the voters an opportunity to make their decisions. I think that Senator Helms unfairly gets labeled with the race issue a lot. Both

parties used the issue of race to the advantage of their parties. Yet it doesn't get reported in the media much how the Democratic Party also can use the issue of race. Let me let me if I may turn your attention to the race that we'll be looking at for governor. Robin Hayes versus Jim Hunt former governor do you believe that hunt is vulnerable. Any candidate running for public office door County vulnerable and even those who have candidates deceased as their opponents will tell you if you could. We know that six months from now when the Gen-X sometimes a long time off the presidential race will be on the front burner and that will have the impact upon human stories and or care and you will have congressional races that will bring out voters as well as local races. These many of these voters that did not vote in this

primary will be out there in November and we don't know how they're going to vote at this particular point. The issue will be different. As has been pointed out we have we have emotional issues that were gender which out of North Jersey what happens nationally even globally will affect the governor's race in North Carolina because her global issues affect the presidential race which in turn will affect your dories. So I would say at this point it's ridiculous to try to call it Representative Barr in North Carolina like most of the country saw a lot of races go Republican in 1994 Do you anticipate that that will continue or do you think that the Democrats have a chance to win back some of those races. Oh I think the Democrats have good chances. I think it's apparent at this point that people across the country have not been very enthusiastic about how far Congress has

gone. They were public a majority they are in and many people think it is extreme and they didn't quite bargain for that and so I think that there will be a swing back and that Democrats will have a far better year this election year in the gubernatorial race. I think there are some very clear choices that voters will have to make and it will be interesting to watch to see if the Republican party closes ranks behind Mr. Hayes because that was a rather bitter campaign between Mr. Vinroot and Mr. Hazen. It will be interesting to watch that. Governor Hunt has the advantage of not having had a primary and having the Democratic Party. I would I would think fairly solidly behind. And there's a bit of a split now to be repaired in the in the Republican Party over this gubernatorial primary and it will be interesting to watch and see how that how that happens.

Well I thank you all for your time this evening. We'll certainly be watching. And I know that we'll see many of you back over the next six months as we see what's shaping up in the for the general elections. Thank you you are. That's it for our show tonight we hope you'll join us tomorrow night when we'll show you how North Carolina is catching a look like they were what will take a trip to one of our state's beautiful state parks as we resume our popular state park series. And we'll take a look at how well the Tar Heel economy is doing. Thanks for joining us we'll see you tomorrow night.